Enthusiasm and dynamic, focused discussions marked last week’s Online News Association09 Conference and Awards Ceremony in San Francisco, in sharp contrast to other gatherings of journalists that I have attended this year. One might say it almost seemed like “irrational exuberance.”

Today, David Simon, former Baltimore Sun police beat reporter, author, and creator of the popular HBO drama, The Wire, spoke about the future of professional journalism in an age of media consolidation and declining newspaper readership as part of his noontime address to journalists and guests at the National Press Club.